PrepTest 145, Section 2, Question 13
Nations that have little interaction with one another(28 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Anations that have(15 more words not shown)
- Bwithout some interaction,(15 more words not shown)
- Calmost all problems(9 more words not shown)
- Dthere is no(6 more words not shown)
- Eonly nations that(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
It's hard to respond sympathetically to needs you barely understand. Interaction can help supply that understanding. Think of how visits and contact might make someone more familiar with neighboring countries than with a distant country they rarely encounter. The passage makes a similar point about nations' knowledge of one another.
What we’re looking for
For the sentence completion, connect its two claims. Little interaction means little knowledge of the other country's needs and problems. Sympathy and justice depend largely on understanding those needs and problems. So limited interaction should make sympathy and justice difficult.
Working the answers
- A
Understanding helps support sympathy and justice, but the passage doesn't say it guarantees them. A nation could understand another nation's problems and still choose not to respond fairly or compassionately. A promises a result merely from having the knowledge.
- BCorrect
Without some interaction, nations will find it difficult to extend sympathy and justice to one another. This connects the first claim's limited knowledge with the second claim's dependence on understanding. 'Difficult' also fits the passage's qualified language: we aren't told that sympathy becomes absolutely impossible.
- C
We have no account of where almost all international problems come from. The passage explains something sympathy and justice depend on. That doesn't make their absence the source of nearly every problem between nations.
- D
The passage doesn't establish that international conflict is impossible to eliminate. Nor must we prove that all conflict can be eliminated to reject this answer. The author simply hasn't made a claim about the possibility of ending conflict altogether.
- E
Little knowledge isn't no knowledge. Nations with little interaction are said to have little understanding of one another's needs. They could still know something. E imposes an absolute requirement for having any knowledge and therefore goes beyond the more limited claim we were given.
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